Australia has struck a second intelligence sharing agreement in less than a week, this time with France, as fears rise about the Syrian civil war becoming a hub for home-grown terrorism.

In Paris on the weekend, Prime Minister
Tony Abbott
and French President Francois Hollande held a bilateral meeting and agreed, among other things, to share intelligence on their respective citizens who have gone to Syria to fight in that country’s civil war.

All three nations are worried about their own citizens not only becoming further radicalised while fighting in Syria, but developing the necessary “skills’’ enabling them to mount deadly terror attacks upon their return home. One official used as an example the 2008 Mumbai massacre of 166 people by terrorists employing paramilitary techniques.

It has become a growing concern, especially given the difficulties of trying to prevent people going to Syria to fight and then trying to keep track of those who are there.

Australia has an estimated 50 to 100 citizens fighting in Syria, Indonesia an estimated 200 and France, which has a large Islamic population, believes as many as 700 of its citizens are involved in the war.

“They agreed on the importance of close intelligence and security cooperation in responding to the threat posed by fighters returning from Syria,’’ said the joint statement issued following the meeting between Mr Abbott and Mr Hollande.

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“They agreed that maintaining peace and stability is crucial to global prosperity and that both countries would continue to work closely together on a range of shared security challenges."

On other security issues, Mr Hollande briefed Mr Abbot on the situation concerning Russia and Ukraine, while Mr Abbott brought the French President up to speed on China’s recent posturing in the region.

“They agreed that maintaining peace and stability is crucial to global prosperity and that both countries would continue to work closely together on a range of shared security challenges."

Mr Hollande will be the first French President to visit Australia when he arrives in November for the Group of Twenty Leaders’ Summit in Brisbane.

“They agreed on the importance of a strong focus on economic growth, deregulation and opening of markets and that all G20 economies needed to put in place their own reforms to achieve these goals."